PLATYPUS

The Platypus: Australia’s Most Extraordinary Animal

The Platypus (Ornithorhynchus anatinus) is one of nature’s most extraordinary creatures, often described as a living evolutionary marvel. Native to eastern Australia and Tasmania, the Platypus combines traits seen in otters, beavers, and ducks—yet it is a species entirely unique unto itself.

What Does a Platypus Look Like?

The Platypus is a small, semi-aquatic mammal with a body that resembles an otter’s, a broad flat tail like a beaver, and a distinctive duck-like bill.

Fur

 The Platypus has one of the densest fur coats of any mammal. Up to 900 hairs can grow in a single square millimetre of skin, forming a thick waterproof layer that traps air and insulates the animal in cold freshwater streams. This dense coat acts like a natural wetsuit, helping the Platypus maintain its body temperature during long dives.

Tail

The Platypus has a broad, flattened tail that plays several important roles in its survival.

Energy Storage
The tail stores fat reserves that the Platypus can draw upon during times when food is scarce. This stored energy is especially important during the breeding season and for females while nesting, when they may spend long periods inside their burrows caring for eggs and young.

A Powerful Rudder in the Water
While the front feet provide the main propulsion when swimming, the tail works like a stabiliser and rudder. It helps the Platypus steer, maintain balance and control direction as it glides through the water in search of prey.

Support on Land
On land, the tail helps support the Platypus’s body as it walks or digs along riverbanks. Its broad shape provides stability when the animal is moving through muddy ground or excavating burrows.

A Transport Tool for Nesting Material
Female Platypus use their tails in a very unusual way when preparing their nesting burrows. They gather wet leaves and vegetation, press the material against their curled tail, and carry it back into the burrow to line the nesting chamber where the eggs will be laid.

Fat Reserves Reveal Body Condition
Because the tail stores fat, its thickness can indicate the health of a Platypus. A full, rounded tail suggests a well‑fed animal, while a thin tail may indicate poor food availability or illness.

Feet

The front feet are fully webbed for powerful swimming, while the back feet act as rudders and brakes.

The Platypus is superbly adapted for life in the water, and one of its most useful features is the large webbing on its front feet. When swimming, the webbing stretches well beyond the claws, forming broad paddle-like surfaces that help the Platypus push through the water. The powerful front legs provide most of the propulsion, allowing the animal to glide smoothly through rivers and creeks as it searches for food.

However, this extensive webbing would make walking and digging difficult on land. To solve this problem, the Platypus can retract the webbing.

When the Platypus leaves the water, the flexible skin between the toes folds backward toward the base of the foot. As the webbing retracts, the strong claws become fully exposed. This allows the Platypus to grip the ground and dig effectively.

These sharp claws are used to excavate burrows in riverbanks where the Platypus rests during the day or where females create nesting chambers for their eggs and young.

The hind feet are different. Their webbing is smaller and does not extend far beyond the toes. Instead of providing propulsion, the hind feet help with steering while swimming. In males, the hind legs also carry the distinctive venomous spur used during the breeding season.

This clever retractable webbing system allows the Platypus to move efficiently in two very different environments — gliding through water like a skilled swimmer and walking or digging on land with strong, clawed feet.

Bill

Its Most Iconic Feature, the bill of the Platypus is not just unusual—it’s a highly specialised sensory organ. Packed with electroreceptors, it detects the faint electrical signals of small prey underwater. 

How Does a Platypus Hunt?

Platypus are expert divers. When searching for food, they gather small aquatic animals while scooping up silt and gravel along the riverbed.

Platypus hunt using electricity!
When a Platypus dives underwater, it closes its eyes, ears, and nostrils. Instead of relying on sight or sound, it hunts using electroreceptors in its bill. These specialised sensors detect tiny electrical signals produced when the muscles of prey such as insect larvae, worms, and freshwater shrimp move. By sweeping its bill through water and sediment, the Platypus can locate prey even in dark or muddy streams.

• Diet: Insect larvae, worms, freshwater shrimp, and other invertebrates.
• Feeding behaviour: They store food in cheek pouches, then chew using tough grinding plates in place of teeth.
• Energy needs: A Platypus can consume up to 20% of its body weight daily—a very hungry hunter!
  

   

  How a Platypus Eats Without Teeth

  A Platypus feeds in a way that is unlike almost any other mammal.

  When it dives underwater, the Platypus closes its eyes, ears and nostrils and searches along the bottom of rivers and creeks using its highly sensitive bill. As it sweeps its bill from side to side through mud, gravel and leaf litter, it detects prey such as insect larvae, worms, freshwater shrimp and small crustaceans.

  The Platypus does not immediately eat its food underwater. Instead, it gathers prey along with small amounts of mud, sand and gravel into specialised cheek pouches at the back of its mouth. These pouches act like temporary storage while the animal continues searching along the streambed.

  Once the cheek pouches are full, the Platypus returns to the surface or rests at the water’s edge. Adult Platypus do not have true teeth. Instead, they use tough keratinised grinding pads inside the mouth. The small pieces of gravel collected during feeding help crush and grind the prey against these pads.

  During this grinding process, the Platypus extracts the soft edible tissues from its prey. The nutritious internal parts are swallowed, while the hard indigestible pieces such as insect shells and crustacean exoskeletons are not eaten.

  After feeding, the Platypus expels these unwanted fragments from its cheek pouches, effectively flushing out the remains of shells and debris before diving again to hunt.

  Because hunting in cold water requires a lot of energy, a Platypus must eat large quantities of food each day. An adult may consume roughly 15–20 percent of its body weight daily, feeding on hundreds of small aquatic animals hidden within the riverbed.